


home & heart, near & far

by Morbane



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Book: Red Star Rising | Dragonseye, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Polyamory, Slice of Life, Threadfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4627500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young dragon and her rider fly to meet Thread, and think on other meetings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home & heart, near & far

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



> thank you to NightsMistress for the beta! You're a champ.

A light, chilling, early-autumn rain fell across the bowl of Telgar Weyr, splashing into the lake. The low clouds obscured Telgar's neighbouring mountains, and the thin drizzle obscured the activities of the Weyr. At the edges of the Caverns, injured dragons, returned from flying an afternoon Fall, were attended by Weyr medics and their helpers. Further around the lake, weyrlings assembled firestone sacks ready to resupply the riders. On the heights, Debera and Morath and nine other dragon-rider pairs waited for the signal to join the Weyr in its fight against Thread.

This half-wing of dragons would shortly fly at the level of the queen's wing. With the largest and most senior dragons of the Weyr to oversee them, and most Thread flamed to ash by the dragons above them, they would have the safest possible training ground for inexperienced flyers - or, the safest possible training that could occur in a live Fall.

"Your dragon may feel that he - or she - doesn't have enough to do," T'dam, the Weyrlingmaster, had warned his students, before approving them to fly Fall. "But you, as their rider, have a great deal to do! Keep an eye on your wing. Be alert to Thread coming from above and from the side - and it _will_ come, when you don't expect it. You've all demonstrated that you can reliably fly in formation - that's why you're here. But it's another thing to keep your pattern - and vary your pattern, and resume your pattern - when there is Thread to flame."

Debera had found that to be very true in her first Fall. She had been grateful for the steadying presence of the queens. She suspected she would be grateful again for them today - only her third participation in a live Fall. These were different dragons and riders to those who had made up a junior half-wing with her before. The weyrlings had not yet been assigned permanent wings, and so they were rotated at T'dam's discretion.

A brown dragon blinked into existence above them, in between raindrops. Debera's hopes rose - then fell when she saw the empty firestone sacks he carried - then rose again as Morath reported, _Bralleth has an image for us._ Squinting, Debera was now able to make out the rider, T'lan.

"And you have it clearly?"

_We can go there._

"Good," Debera said, giving Morath an encouraging pat. She was still growing - Debera had to stretch to reach a spot three neck ridges away, when she'd almost been able to touch Morath's head on their first flight together. "Now tell Clazanth that." Brown Clazanth, and his rider J'sen, would lead the young riders' formation today to meet with the queens.

 _Clazanth says we may chew._ Morath bent her head to the small pile of firestone waiting in front of her. To either side of her, other dragons did the same. "Here we go," muttered W'len, green Nuith's rider, just barely loud enough for Debera to hear him. She grinned at him - probably a rather silly grin, but it was better than opening her mouth and letting her feelings out that way. This was the job that they had trained for, that Morath had hatched for!

 _I hatched to Impress you,_ Morath avowed, _so we could fight Thread together._

_Just so, dear heart._

"Into formation!" J'sen called, and the dragons leapt into the air.

They attained the required altitude and formation with appropriate speed. Then, the dragons wheeled to face Telgar's peaks, just barely visible through the clouds. That would be their reference point for returning. Next came the order to go _between_.

Some riders counted breaths; some recited poetry to mark the time spent _between_. Debera had heard that certain sections of the Duty Song were becoming popular for riders to chant to themselves. She used a lullaby Milla had sung to her - suitable, she felt, to ward against this realm colder and blacker than any night.

Two lines in to her recitation, they emerged, high above the river plains east of Ruatha Hold. The clouds were higher here, and no rain fell.

Debera had learned to suppress the urge to glance sideways, checking that all the other dragons had also emerged from _between_. It made people nervous - and if a dragon had been lost, she'd know soon enough. Instead, she looked ahead to where the main force of the Weyr was flying - some dragonlengths distant.

Morath's eyes whirled at the sight of the foe that dragons had been bred to combat. _I want to flame!_

 _We'll get there soon enough,_ Debera reassured her. 

_I know,_ Morath replied, her reassurance so much a mirror of Debera's own tone that Debera had to smile.

Others in their wing were not so restrained. Clazanth was already pulling ahead, his neck straining towards the Thread he could see falling. Blue Wuoreth followed him. The wing's neat formation stretched out of shape.

 _Morath, tell Wuoreth to look to his wingmates,_ Debera commanded, tackling the easiest problem first. Brown dragons matured more slowly than greens, so Clazanth was significantly older than Morath, and his rider was of an age with Debera. She would have better luck exerting authority over Wuoreth and his rider, young D'von, and if the rest of the wing resumed its formation she would have an easier time calling Clazanth back.

To her relief, Wuoreth and D'von obeyed, gliding briefly to allow the other dragons to catch up. Then J'sen realised that he had left his wing behind, and Clazanth pivoted sheepishly to resume his proper place again.

 _We will arrive in good order and the queens will approve,_ Morath announced to her wingmates and her rider alike. This time, Debera attempted to stifle her grin. The young green sounded so sure of herself.

 _I learned it from you,_ Morath told her rider.

 _Of course you did,_ Debera answered warmly.

The rest of their approach was steady. As they caught up to the leading edge at last, Clazanth announced their presence to the queens, and the ten young riders they were replacing winked _between_ , going home.

 _Ludreth welcomes us,_ Morath told Debera. Ludreth, Kersta's dragon, was the most senior queen flying today. _Now we flame._

The ten minutes or so before any Thread reached the lowest wing felt like the longest part of that Threadfall. W'len and Nuith sighted a clump falling off to the right, and dived towards it; their wingmates Raechel and Agath dived with them, destroying the remnants of the clump before returning to formation. _The queens are pleased,_ Morath told Debera. Then it was their turn.

Debera's wing was only scheduled to fly with the Weyr for an hour and a half - the second half of this early-Pass fall. Debera scarcely noticed the fields and groves passing underneath. It seemed as though she and Morath had only pivoted half a dozen times, as they ranged up and down the leading edge of Fall, before the Fall was over, and the dragons above them winked _between_. They had not even had to call for another sack of firestone.

The Fall was over, but their work was not. The second job of the queen's wing was to liaise with the ground crews, and fly back over the landscape where Thread had fallen, checking for missed Thread that had been allowed to land and spread blight. The queens sent a reference point for the place where Fall had started. Queens and junior riders assembled there, and began the fly-over again, now all equipped with tanks of a caustic mixture with which to kill Thread safely on the ground.

Now time seemed to resume its normal pace. Flying sweeps to follow the path of Thread was a tedious job, though a necessary one. Debera shaded her eyes against the lowering sun, now emerging from the clouds, scanning the long shadows it cast behind every tree or rocky outcrop.

They approached a hold; Debera hadn't noticed it on the first fly-over, and didn't know its name. _I will ask,_ Morath volunteered, and shortly informed her rider, _Gallaway Hold. Kurath says his rider knows._

 _Kurath's rider is T'motee,_ Debera reminded Morath. Dragons did not remember riders' names as readily as those of other dragons.

The hold had been built into a gorge that overlooked the river, with further slate-roofed buildings extending its reach at the top of the gorge. Smoke came from chimneys, but no humans could be seen. Debera and Morath flew low to check whether Thread had fallen anywhere that was not stone, and, satisfied that no Thread had been allowed to reach the Hold, flew on.

In a field beyond, a woman standing by her runnerbeast waved Morath down. It was immediately clear why. Wheat was blighted in a rough oval, near an obvious burrow that almost smoked where Thread had passed.

"Careful of the crops, Morath," Debera said aloud for the woman's benefit as they landed.

The woman shook her head. "Better thorough than neat. It's lucky it was near the edge of the field, or I wouldn't have seen it."

"I'll do another sweep over this field once I'm aloft," Debera promised the woman, unstrapping the nozzle of her tank. "Dig a little, please, Morath?"

Morath obliged, and soon exposed a tangle of two Threads, squirming and engorged. Both women exclaimed in disgust. Debera sprayed them liberally, and waited until they were still before asking Morath to cover them with dirt again. They watched for further spread of the blight, in case a further strand of Thread had been missed, but all seemed well.

"Thank you, Morath," the holder addressed the dragon.

Morath looked up at the woman. _You know her,_ she informed Debera.

 _I do? ___Debera sized up the holder again, trying not to stare too obviously.

Then it came to her. "You're Ainslee," she said. The woman looked puzzled.

"Yes," she said. "Have we met?"

"No," Debera said, "but I've seen your face before. Iantine came this way, didn't he?" She could feel her lips curve as she said his name.

The woman's face cleared. "The artist? Yes, he stayed with us in spring. Drew sketches of my mother and brother and me."

"He showed them to me," Debera said. "He tells us about the people he sketches, at the Weyr."

"Does he?" Ainslee asked. "That's good." She punctuated her words with a nod. "And he told us about you, too - if you're Debera, as I guess." Her smile was teasing.

"That's me," Debera said, laughing.

"Well, I'd best not keep you, rider Debera, green Morath," Ainslee said, "but I'm glad to put a face to a name."

"And a name to a face!" Debera quipped in reply, clipping her tank nozzle back into position as she mounted Morath again to resume the sweep.

She did not think about Ainslee for long. There was a large area to fly over before night fell, and other holders who hailed her, even when they had no Thread to report. Even when the sweep was done, work was not, for she must wipe Morath and herself clean of firestone dust and Thread ash, and return the half-used firestone sack to the stores, and fill and tie it so that it would be ready for a rider to take into the next Fall. Then she had to arrange to feed Morath, and then help cut meat for the newest hatchlings: injured riders meant more chores to do and fewer to do them.

It was late when she at last returned to her own Weyr.

She missed those wonderful days when she had returned to find Iantine there, and after speaking of him today, it was hard not to dwell on them.

After their dance at Turn's End, he had gone to Benden, but he had returned in the spring, after the start of the pass. Then, he had stayed for several sevendays - had gone again, to Igen Weyr this time, to draw the same sort of gallery of riders that he'd drawn at Telgar - had returned again in the summer, with no reason but to see her. Zulaya and K'vin had been tolerant, and she had discreetly established to what extent she could draw on the resources of the Weyr to feed and house her "guest".

But Iantine himself had been anxious to pursue his trade, and even with the current rate of clutching, bringing new riders into the Weyr, there was only so much he could do - and be paid for - at Telgar. As summer waned, he had returned to the road. Her last letter from him had come from the newly established Crom Hold.

Before he had gone, they had become lovers at last. Morath had not yet then risen to mate, but she was of sufficient age; the other riders who had Impressed blues and greens from Morath's clutch had been given permission for associations - even encouraged to pursue them, so that experience might steady them when their dragons rose.

In between training flights, mending harnesses, and other Weyr chores, Debera had been surprised at just how much time she could find to spent with Iantine - though it didn't hurt that the Weyr approved.

That was foresight! For K'vin and Zulaya would surely approve of this result - a preexisting connection, today, between a young rider flying a Fall, and the holder whose land she had worked to protect.

Debera was glad, too, that she had experienced so much intimacy with Iantine before experiencing dragon-enhanced mating. Oh, she had heard plenty of tales of that - and suspected some exaggeration - but that would be very different to the quiet, tender times with Iantine, when they had been so utterly absorbed in each other; she was glad she had that now, to compare.

It had been difficult to discuss with Iantine what Morath's rising would mean. Oh, he understood it intellectually. But emotionally? She wasn't sure. For herself, she had made it clear that she did not expect to alone hold his attention. But how would it feel to see other sketches, of women like Ainslee, and know that he had loved them as well?

 _You are loved, always,_ Morath told her firmly, cutting into her more melancholy thoughts. _Always and forever, for I am yours and you are mine. I do not mind that Iantine loves you._

 _Then I will try to follow your example, my dear,_ Debera replied, sending her dragon all the affection she felt - and yet that was not possible, for there was no end to it. She had been Morath's from the moment that shell cracked open, yet every day together strengthened their bond.

 _And tomorrow is another day,_ Morath concluded smugly, and Debera had to laugh - dragons' understanding of time was not complex. There was wisdom here, but it was somewhat accidental wisdom. Still, she would take it, however it came to her.

 _We will meet it together,_ she agreed, including Iantine in that idea, and hoping that he carried her with her, as she cherished the thought of him here.


End file.
